This invention relates to heat exchangers, and in particular, to plate and fin type heat exchangers such as the type used with internal combustion engines for cooling engine coolant.
In the past, engine coolant heat exchangers, such as radiators, have been made by providing a plurality of parallel, spaced-apart flat tubes with cooling fins located therebetween to form a core. Opposed ends of the tubes pass through openings formed in manifolds or headers located on each side of the core at the respective ends of the tubes. A difficulty with this type of construction is that the tube to headerjoints are difficult to fabricate and prone to leakage.
A method of overcoming these difficulties is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,265,126 issued to D. M. Donaldson. In this patent, headers are provided with a continuous longitudinal opening, and the tubes are formed with specially shaped ends to fit into this continuous opening, thus simplifying the assembly and reducing the leakage problem. A difficulty with the Donaldson structure, however, is that the shape of the various components is quite complex resulting in high tooling costs.
The present invention is a heat exchanger of universal application where relatively simple and inexpensive tooling is required to make heat exchangers of different types and even with differing sizes and configurations.